Electric Heating Unit for Oil Pipeline Paraffin Deposit Monitoring System

For planning and effective implementation of expensive operations for cleaning oil pipelines from paraffin deposits it is necessary to get faithful information concerning paraffin sediments thickness. Therefore, corresponding measuring devices are necessary. Measuring transducers based on thermal methods are more preferable. As a rule, such transducers includes electrical heater and temperature sensors for measurement of heat transfer parameters which are dependent on many factors including paraffin sediments thickness. Authors proposed the new technical solution based on the idea of localization of measurement area in a pipe and redirection of thermal flow from the heater into the layer of paraffin deposit. It make the proposed transducer more sensitive to the thickness of paraffin sediments. It was proposed to implement measurement of paraffin deposit thickness as multipoint, that make possible to estimate nonuniformity of paraffin layer on the inner surface of the pipe. To realize the proposed method it is necessary to install the ring-shaped electrical heater around the pipe. Under the heater a few temperature sensors must be placed with equal distances between neighboring ones. Also two additional the same shape heaters functioning as thermal barriers must be placed on the pipe with equal distances astride the main heater. All the pipe segment between the heaters-barriers must be isolated from the ambient air by the heat-insulating layer.